


Erudition 2.5

by wargoddess



Series: The Templar Canticles [15]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Drabble, M/M, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-27
Updated: 2014-02-27
Packaged: 2018-01-14 00:34:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1246081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wargoddess/pseuds/wargoddess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cullen in the morning, in torment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Erudition 2.5

**Author's Note:**

> From a prompt on Tumblr. My attempt to write something short for once. Comes sometime after Erudition 2, thus the title.

     It struck him rather like a fever one morning, inexplicable and random and fierce.  He awakened as usual, sat up to stretch as usual, rubbed his face as usual.  Turned to gaze down at his lover, which was not so usual, though becoming more so.  Carver lay insensible beside Cullen, in a necessarily compact sprawl since Cullen’s bed was not exceptionally large, with his head propped on one arm and turned to the side.  It was difficult sleeping with Carver.  He took up too much room and radiated too much heat, and occasionally he muttered or farted or kicked Cullen in his sleep.  Cullen had not yet had the heart to bar Carver from spending the night, but he’d had to make certain Carver did not sleep over on nights before an important meeting, or when Cullen was truly exhausted and needed a solid night’s rest.

     And yet.

     Cullen shifted to his side, propping himself on his elbow to gaze down at the other man.  Carver’s breathing was slow and even, steady as a metronome. It was almost a compulsion, the urge to touch him, but Cullen resisted this for fear of waking him.  Better just to look, anyhow — to stare as he could not when Carver was awake to laugh or others were about to whisper.  The long line of him, from neck-tendons to the centerline of his chest to the valley of his belly to the abrupt and stark black cliff of his pubic hair.  The curves and veins of his arms.  The tuft of hair revealed at one armpit; and was it wrong of Cullen to lean in and breathe the stronger scent of him there?  To shiver in pleasure as he did so?  And then to breathe in the rest of him, following the warmth of his body from pit to throat:  musk and sweat and the incomprehensible smell that was Carver’s skin, overlaid faintly by the lingering scent of oil from their previous night’s lovemaking and soap from the subsequent cleanup. 

     It _was_ wrong, that was the thing.  This was what the Chantry Mothers and Sisters warned against:  this _craving_ for another, this need to reduce them somehow to bits of flesh and prurient associations.  It profaned the Maker’s creation to use the body like this, to _objectify_ it so.  Carver was a miracle like all living things, no more special or perfect than any other, and yet there was no one else whom Cullen _needed_ like this.  No one else who made him open his mouth and stretch out his tongue and _almost_ lick that waiting, available skin.  No one else who made his mouth water as he did so — and his hands clench on the sheets, and his breath quicken, and his groin ache and throb.  And even if there had been anyone else who made him want so powerfully, he would not have _held_ like this, so close without touching, so hungry without biting, so overwhelmed with yearning that he nearly moaned and _wept_ with it —

     But he did none of these things, lest he wake Carver.

     Instead he just stayed where he was, watching, imagining, _in torment_ , until after a time Carver stretched and sighed and turned his head and blinked to find Cullen there.

     “Hey,” he said, his voice rough and eyes soft with sleep.  “Want something?”

     “Only to say good morning,” Cullen said.  He smiled and bent to kiss Carver lightly.  Then he got up, stretched, and headed off to start his day.


End file.
